As creative entrepreneurs living in the digital age with the most effective marketing tool (social media) available at our fingertips, the pressure to put yourself out there is on.

A lot of my clients come to me with this feeling of dread-- a pressure to ‘perform’, to portray themselves and their brands in a good light. They worry that they’re going to come off badly and potentially harm their businesses/brands.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had many conversations with clients or members of the Space about setting sales targets for the year. Some say they have no clue where to start, others say they’re putting it off because quite frankly, they’re scared.

We’re our own bosses because we want a better life for ourselves. We want enough time to spend with family; we want to build a brand that makes a difference in the world; we want to earn enough to live our best life, but we get freaked out when it comes to working out our sales targets because we think we can’t. We think we're not going to reach those figures, or we think we’re not worth it. We say we don’t do it because it’s ‘boring’ but really, it’s because we’re scared of what we’re going to unearth. We don’t believe in ourselves enough to try. And that’s what I want to change.

Money is a subject that we tend to shy away from. Maybe it’s because of Britishness, or that we’ve been taught it’s rude to talk about- I don’t really know. What I do know is that it’s more than healthy to talk about money. In fact, it’s vital that we open up a dialogue about it so we can learn more about our mindset and start living the life we want.

It's that time of year where we're bombarded with content that's telling us we need to be ‘better’. A smarter you. A thinner you. A more successful you. It’s telling us that we need to somehow shed our skin and personality from last year and be a ‘new you’. But I don’t think that’s what New Years is for.

I believe it’s a time where we can reflect on the past year, and hone in on our direction for the next. We can see if we’re still on the path to our version of success*, or if we’ve veered off of it somehow. It’s not a time to fall into a pattern of self-hate. It’s a chance to get some perspective on our working habits, and to also celebrate the hell out of our successes from the year.

Three years ago, I created this graphic that seemed to resonate with a lot of you all around the world.

My intention was to raise awareness on how important it is to shop independent, especially at Christmas where it can really mean make or break for the little guys. We’re competing against these huge department stores and high street chains who don’t really fret if they lose a couple of hundred quid, but for us, it’s incredibly damaging. I’m sure the CEO’s of these companies aren’t struggling to pay their rent, or are eating beans on toast every single meal because they can’t afford anything else. They’re not up all night with worry, wondering if going down this career path was the right thing (well actually, maybe they are, but that’s probably a tax-dodging anxiety rather than on-the-poverty-line anxiety!).

By supporting independents at Christmas, you are not only pumping money into that business, but you're also helping that maker live. Pay rent, pay all of those bills (maybe even on time), feed their families. It really is a big deal. Much bigger than giving that CEO of a large corporation some play money for their boat.

This year marks the first Christmas were I'm not spending my weekends in freezing cold halls or losing the will to live in 2 hour long post office queue. I shut down my design studio, LH design, in September so that I could focus on my coaching/OGB and although I'm thankful I won't be dealing with the Christmas Rush this year, I'm sort of missing it! My partner and I used to have so much fun at markets, after the initial stress of wondering if you're going to sell anything/is he going to throw up on a customer (he was ALWAYS hungover because it was ALWAYS his Christmas party the night before).

No matter how well you plan within in your creative life and business, life will happen. Whether it’s an emergency of health, a problem with the house that needs sorting ASAP, or a new bundle of joy arrives-- the universe will throw a little spanner in the works that may mean that you’ll need to take time out from running your business on a daily basis.

So, how can we make sure our businesses continue to run when we need to take time out?